Thursday, July 16, 2015

First Verbs

Verbs are equally powerful in our stories. We did exactly 2 creative writing activities when I was in school. Both of these Grade 6 assignments without any teaching about what worked and didn't work in fiction. (Yes, that means I did exactly 0 creative writing in school from kindergarten until my final year of university.)

We did diagram far too many sentences, so I least I knew my parts of speech. And I knew what nouns and verbs were. I also knew that all the sentences we diagrammed were chock full of adverbs and adjectives (the better to diagram with, my dear). Therefore, my 2 assignments were equally full of adverbs and adjectives.

Which meant weak verbs.

Sigh.

Anyway, over at From the Write Angle, I've included the first few verbs of the query I used several years ago (haven't queried since, still working on improving the craft!).

Thought I'd try the same here, using the story I'm currently revising. First few verbs:

plated
made
bumped
headed
graced
reached
quailed
fled

(Past tense verbs sound odd when strung together!)
Putting the list together makes me think I need another round of revising/editing here. While the verbs aren't bad, they don't give a great sense of the story. Hmmm, off to do some thinking!

Funny, your school experience sounds a lot like mine here below the 45th parallel. Our sixth grade was ALL creative writing (well, a lot, anyway), but I don't remember anything after that, except maybe 'finish this story' or 'write an alternate ending for this story'.

I don't know if the verbs alone really CAN give a great sense of the story--anything out of context is going to be strange. Heading over to FtWA; be well!

We did some creative writing in elementary and high schools, but like you I had none in university. Strong verbs really carry the day, don't they? It's always hard to believe the difference in a sentence with boring vs. exciting verbs.

I'm into action words. Past tense verbs gets me onto the subject of tense, which I try not to get tense over. Then again, surreal thinking might make me ramble like this. I've been thinking about going camping. I like to have plenty of tents. I thought about the tents I once had. I looked at the tents I now have. Indeed, I thought about the tents I want to buy. In other words: past, present and future tents. Yeah, I know 'Nomads' are 'in tents' lovers. Did all this talk of 'tents' make you 'tense'?

Interesting exercise. For what it's worth, I think you're right; good fiction writing, when distilled to its essence, is action. And it seems we can discern something of your story! I'd imagine someone encounters a person/thing they thought was good, and then things go south fast. Am I at all close?

Something more for me to think about. I do love strong verbs- and tend to use too many adjectives (I love them for some reason). ;) An interesting exercise that I have written myself a note to look up in my WIP. Thanks!~Jess